Microsoft and Meta Platforms are two artificial intelligence (AI) stocks to buy and hold for the long term.
Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to be one of the driving themes of the stock market. However, there have been some recent AI stock laggards that look like great stocks you can buy and hold for the next decade while they are on sale.
Let’s look at two.
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Microsoft: A cloud leader
One of the first companies to push all in on AI, Microsoft (MSFT +2.00%) finds itself in a good position despite its lagging stock price. It’s also attractively valued, trading at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of about 25 times based on fiscal 2026 analyst estimates (ending June 2026) and below 22.5 times fiscal 2027 estimates.
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The company was an early investor in OpenAI and owns an approximately 27% stake, along with privileged access to its intellectual property and AI models through 2032. The ChatGPT maker has also committed to spending $250 billion on computing power with Microsoft’s cloud computing arm, Azure. Azure has been Microsoft’s biggest growth driver, with revenue growing by 30% or more for 10 consecutive quarters, including 39% last quarter.
With large commitments from both OpenAI and Anthropic, growth should remain strong over the next several years.
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s software businesses have also been strong, led by continued adoption of its AI assistant copilots. Last quarter, Copilot seats soared 160%, while daily active users surged 10 times.
Given its cloud computing growth and Copilot strength, Microsoft is a stock to buy and hold for the long term.
Meta Platforms: Accelerating ad growth
Another top AI stock that has lagged over the past year that looks like a long-term buy is Meta Platforms (META 1.24%).
Despite the social media giant’s strong growth, the stock trades at a forward P/E of just 23 times based on the 2026 analyst earnings consensus. That’s cheap for a stock that just grew its revenue by 22% in 2025 and expects its revenue growth to accelerate in the first quarter.
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Meta has been investing heavily in AI, and it’s been paying off with increased user engagement and better ad conversions. This helped lead to an 18% increase in ad impressions last quarter and a 6% rise in ad prices, with total revenue growth of 24%.
Meanwhile, the company forecast that its Q1 revenue would grow between 26% and 34%, as this momentum should continue.
Meta Platforms is also just starting to introduce ads to its popular WhatsApp messaging platform, which has more than 3 billion users. While most are lower monetizing international users, this is still a huge opportunity. At the same time, it is still in the very early innings of building out and starting to monetize its newest social media platform, Threads.
Between AI and these new ad opportunities, Meta is a stock to buy and hold for the long haul.
